


If I Told You

by theclaravoyant



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: 4x15 extended scene, 4x15 insert, Gen, arguably Skimmons/Bioquake if you want, canon compat lmd death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-05
Updated: 2017-03-05
Packaged: 2018-09-28 11:36:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10098881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theclaravoyant/pseuds/theclaravoyant
Summary: The heavy door slides open, yielding, and for a moment it feels like they might get a breath of fresh air at last – and then, they don’t.-an extension of the scene in 4x15 between May, Daisy and Jemma.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I received not one but TWO prompts related to an extension of this scene, one of which was vague and one which requested a specific found-family-esque moment between RoboMay (as a conduit for real!May) and Daisy. I have incorporated them both below. It's a little sappier than I'd ever expect from canon but hey, that's what fanfiction's for.

_If I told you this was only gonna hurt_  
_If I warned you that the fire's gonna burn_  
Would you walk in?

\- The Name of Love, Martin Garrix

-

The heavy door slides open, yielding, and for a moment it feels like they might get a breath of fresh air at last – and then, they don’t. 

May – well, the robot wearing her face, her voice, her life, is waiting for them. Sitting on a barrel of explosives, detonator in her hand. She smiles at them. Daisy grimaces, her pain and horror and the gut-wrenching vision of May sitting on a bomb, waiting to blow them all away, turning her stomach. 

“Please,” she begs, and her voice sounds like it’s been put through what she has. “Please, let us go. You know it’s the right thing to do.” 

Robo-May is still almost-smiling, perfectly at ease with her overwhelmingly precarious situation. Daisy leans on the cart they’ve stolen, struggling to stand, hope and life slipping from her fingertips with every passing second. Jemma glances over her, concerned, and then turns a fierce eye on May as if she could march up and take the detonator by force. She couldn’t, for so many reasons, but it doesn’t matter because May speaks. 

“I’m proud of you.” 

It hurts. She says it, knowing it’s not herself, but _her_ – their May, the one she can never be – that would be proud. She doesn’t know them, except through May’s memories. She feels like she’s known them their whole lives. 

“Please, May,” Jemma presses. “Daisy needs help, look at her. You have to let us go.” 

Daisy nods in agreement, but she’s too focused on herself to speak. If she can’t stand, if she can’t walk out of here when this is over, it’s all for nothing. The room is spinning and she tastes blood. She focuses on standing and trusts Jemma. 

“I have to finish my mission,” the Maybot explains, her voice strained like it pains her to say it. Jemma’s eyes soften, not entirely out of real sympathy – and she doesn’t have time to regret it – but because she’s caught her in. Their out. 

“You have, though, haven’t you?” she croons. “All you had to do was get the Darkhold. They have it now. Your mission is over. You’re free.” 

May shakes her head. She doesn’t have free will, she doesn’t understand what it’s like not to be bound. And her memories of May, with a strong sense of mission and loyalty, don’t help either. She’s willingly bound herself for so long it is difficult to conceptualise a completely free choice. 

“I am not free,” she says. “I cannot be free.” 

Jemma shakes her head. “You don’t have to destroy yourself either. You wait until Fitz gets back. Perhaps he’ll think of something for you. He could give you a life, if you want.” 

May is not sure how to explain it, but she doesn’t want a life. She doesn’t want to be someone other than herself, and she can’t be herself, because herself is the self of someone else. She can’t exist. She shouldn’t exist. May should. The real May. The May who wants, who deserves, all the things that she wants and deserves. The May who’s always set her own mission. 

“I want May to be free,” Robo-May says. “I can want that.” 

Jemma nods.

“We want that too. Me and Daisy. We’re going to go rescue her, we’re going to rescue all of them. They’re all going to be free. But we need your help.” 

“I can’t come with you.” 

“No. I’m sorry, I don’t think you can.” 

Jemma doesn’t care much for them, for the robots, for the cold heartless metal that is murdering them all, but the look that crosses Robo-May’s eyes is one that she knows all to well. It’s all too real. 

And Daisy recognises it too. 

She looks up. 

She knows it’s not the real May, but it’s hard, it’s so hard to separate. It’s hard to watch the pieces fall into place, like she watched Trip crumble, like she watched Lincoln’s ship blimp out of existence like a television switching off. 

“Coulson,” Daisy says, because that would get the real May’s attention. That would sway her. “He’s going- to die if you don’t let us go.” 

May blinks and looks from Jemma to Daisy. The sorrowful look, the knowledge of upcoming sacrifice, hardens into steel. Smooth and impenetrable, but not cold. It’s as if the spirit of May, as well as her memories and looks, have stepped in for a moment. 

“Coulson,” she repeats, wistfully, because she loves him too. She loves him as much, but more concentrated, and more raw, and more openly than the real May does. She doesn’t hide herself as much. She hasn’t learnt to, for all her memories. And she doesn’t want to. Not around him. 

“That’s right,” Daisy repeats, finding the strength to straighten a little more. “I know you – you care about him. That’s not a mission. That’s not your programming. And all of this – that’s not going to help him. The Coulson in there, with his face? That’s not him. It’s a false, cruel, murderbot using his face as an excuse. Coulson wouldn’t want that, right? And you wouldn’t want that either.” 

The longing in May’s eyes is hard to watch, but every heart-wrenching second of it brings her closer to their cause, so the girls make an effort to be grateful. In a silent pact, just a glance, they promise to do all they can to show the real May their love after all this has passed. 

“Want?” May repeats. Daisy nods. It’s getting harder again now, but she’s so close – they’re so _close._

“What do you _want?”_ she offers. “What do you want to do with your life? With your choice?” 

 _With your_ last _choice_.

May thinks on this for so long that Daisy collapses against the cart, her energy reserves plummeting. Jemma puts a hand on her back, in reassurance as much as to keep her on the cart, to which Daisy is already clinging for dear life. They’re being hunted, they don’t have long, and at this rate it’s a race between Coulson and the black stars sparkling on the edges of her vision. 

Then the second yellow door slides open. 

Daisy hears and feels Jemma sigh, and she’s glad, because she doesn’t have the energy for it herself. Step by step they struggle forward, and it’s like pushing uphill through snow. Every thought is on putting one foot in front of the other, on feeling the cart and Jemma and longing to lie down but not giving in even though the concrete and metal on which they’re walking seems as inviting as the softest pillow. 

And then there’s another touch, a soft one, somewhere Jemma’s hands are not. Daisy tenses to fight, with what energy she has left, but it is not a threat. Just a touch. Just May. With something of a struggle, she turns her head. 

“She loves you,” May insists, not removing her hand. “She wants to protect you, too. I want to protect you. As much as we do Coulson. You’re our family, Daisy. The family we never got to have. Find her.”

 _Find her. Tell her._  

Daisy nods. 

“Go.” May shoos her away. “They’re coming.” 

With a last-ditch effort, they stagger up the ramp. Daisy falls into Jemma’s arms and she carries her forward into the chair. The world spins, the stars climb in and recede and Daisy can finally breathe. Someone else has the cart, someone else has the plane and she’s so drained and delirious that for a moment, she could die happy. 

They take off, and their screaming precariousness returns. A plume of fire shakes the ship and Davis wrestles control of it while all Daisy can think is _thank God. Thank God for May and her last choice._

She wonders if she should be thanking any sort of figure for the series of abominations that have led them to this mess, but she remembers Sister McKenna, and _God is love,_ and thinks that maybe robots could feel after all and that if they could, what May had felt in that moment – in her last choice – was love. 

Jemma reaches for her hand, and they fly.


End file.
